Double Chooz and the new technique to measure the correlated background affecting reactor antineutrino

by Dr Alberto Remoto

Thursday 21 Mar 2013, 11:00 → 12:00 Europe/Paris

After summarising the results on the parameter sin2 (2θ_{13} ) obtained by Double Chooz, the seminar will focus on a new technique to measure the correlated background affecting reactor antineutrino experiments. While past and present reactor antineutrino experiments measure the correlated background by extrapolating the high energy tail of the prompt spectrum at low energy, a new conception analysis as been developed in Double Chooz. For the first time, a pure sample of correlated background has been selected and studied in the energy region dominated by ν_e. The analysis relies on a tagging strategy based on the direct detection of background events by the outermost detectors of Double Chooz: the ”inner-veto” and the ”outer-veto” detectors. This represents the official Double Chooz analysis on correlated background, published in Phys. Rev. D 86, 052008 (2012). The possible impact of this new technique on other reactor ν_e experiments will be briefly discussed.